Poverty was part of our life, but we had something priceless: their love. Then my grandmother became seriously ill. She was diagnosed with high blood pressure and diabetes and needed regular check-ups and medication. The nearest clinic was far away. We had no car, transport was expensive, and she was too weak to walk the distance. Healthcare existed, but it was beyond our reach. I watched her health deteriorate until we lost her. My grandfather became our caregiver, but he was later diagnosed with prostate cancer. Again, poverty, distance, and limited healthcare stood between a loved one and treatment. Then we lost him too. In less than five years, the two people who had become our parents, protectors, and home were gone. That was when my childhood ended. At eleven, our family became a child-headed household. My brother was fourteen and officially considered the head, but we were all children trying to behave like adults. Every day brought questions about food, school, and survival. During rainy seasons, we walked without umbrellas. To keep food on the table, I worked in the fields doing piecework.

Then another elderly person in my life became seriously ill. There was nobody to cook for her, bathe her, or stay beside her. She would tell me, “You should go to school.” I loved school but leaving her alone felt impossible. Caring for her and helping my younger siblings became more urgent. At sixteen, I left the village for the city to stay with my aunt. My hope was stronger than fear: find work, send money home, and give my siblings a future. Housemaid positions brought repeated rejection because I was too young and inexperienced. Then an unexpected opportunity appeared: volunteering at an elderly home. It was unpaid, but it was a door. I walked to work because transport was unaffordable. When food hampers were donated, whatever could be spared was sent to my siblings. Small stipends became soap, bread, and school expenses. After exhausting days, I attended free adult literacy classes, learning while carrying the responsibility of an entire family. Somewhere along that journey, caring for older people stopped being simply a way to survive. Their vulnerability reminded me of my grandparents, and their need for dignity and companionship reminded me of everything my grandparents had lacked. A promise took shape: Someday I will build a home for older people in rural areas, so no child has to watch their grandparents suffer without care. After a year of volunteering, the elderly home offered me a permanent position. I trained as a caregiver and continued supporting my family. Slowly, the children began building their own futures. Their achievements showed me that sacrifice can create possibilities. Working with older people also taught me that they are not simply patients. They have personalities, humour, memories, opinions, and dreams. I remember an elderly couple arguing over chocolates, and another day when a husband hid a packet of meat in his adult diaper. Those moments taught me that elder care is not only about medicine; it is about patience, laughter, companionship, dignity, and humanity.
These experiences made it impossible to forget rural elders like those in Headlands. Many live far from clinics, struggle to afford transport and medication, and face loneliness or isolation because they are poor, sick, or disabled. Having experienced these barriers as a child, the need for change became deeply personal.

My grandparents were my first caregivers and my home. Their deaths revealed a painful reality: too many older people in rural communities are left without care when they need it most. Their suffering did not make me bitter; it made me determined. That determination led to the establishment of Vakweguri Elderly Care. In Shona, Vakweguri means “the elderly” and the name carries a promise: to transform grief into purpose, love into action, and a difficult childhood into a lifelong commitment to older people.

My story could have ended with survival, but survival alone was never enough. Today, my dream is to build age-friendly communities across Zimbabwe where older people are not forgotten because they are poor, sick, disabled, alone, or living in rural areas. These communities should bring healthcare closer to home and protect every person’s dignity. No older person should have to choose between food and medication, feel invisible, or be left without support. No child should have to become a caregiver simply because the adults they love cannot access the help they need.

The journey began with a little girl wondering who would care for her family. Today, that question has become a purpose: creating communities where generations care for one another. My grandparents gave me love when they had almost nothing else to give. Their lives taught me to care, and their deaths gave me a mission. When older people ask, “Who will stand with us as we grow older?” I want every community to answer, “We will.”

How we treat our elders today reflects the world we are creating for ourselves tomorrow.

Learn more about kanthari at: www.kanthari.org
And, SPREAD THE SPICE is coming up on 17th and 18th October 2026.

The post Blog – When Poverty Decides Who Gets to Grow Old first appeared on kanthari.

The post kanthari quarterly newsletter 3 – 2026 first appeared on kanthari.

This year we had three groups: Learning, Environment and a social. This blogpost was written by Sabriye who joined the learning group.

What if school were different? Lessons from the kanthari Exposure Trip
I came along as a trouble-shooter, but in the beginning, I was the one that actually caused trouble, because I started the journey with severe fever and chills.
Later, Baluku got a painful stomach bug, then Ian got the flu, but none of us was willing to skip a visit. It was simply not possible to miss out.
Our group focused on education. And most of the organisations we visited were running schools, colleges, alternative learning centres, or schools for the blind.
Here are some of the highlights:
Just across the border from Kerala, deep in the forests of Karnataka, we visited a tribal school run by an NGO that oversees several schools in the region. This school follows an experiential-learning approach.
While India’s formal school system can be very rigid, alternative schools are flourishing. Many of them, however, still feel designed for more privileged families. However, this school was clearly different. It served children from some of the most neglected and marginalized communities. Most parents had not had a positive experience of school themselves. To help prevent children from dropping out, they asked that all students over the age of 12 live in the school’s boarding facility. The school did not look like a conventional school at all. Its classrooms were pentagon-shaped huts, strikingly built without windows or doors. Between them were practical learning spaces and workshops for electronics, tailoring, woodwork, and art. The campus also offered several sports and activity areas, including volleyball and football fields, running tracks, and spaces for creative games. One particularly memorable activity was a maths jumping game, which turned learning into movement and play.

All children wore unisex uniforms. This is something I got to realise a couple of years ago, when Niwas, a kanthari of 2021, blamed uniforms that are specifically designed for girls, with knee-long skirts and light-colored blouses, for being a hindrance to playing football, climbing trees and going bicycling. Here, every child wore the same dark shirt and shorts, so there was no need to worry about getting dirty. Another striking feature was that the teachers wore the same uniform too, making them not immediately distinguishable from the students.
“Teachers are seen more as travel guides,” the staff member who showed us around explained. “Children have many opportunities to learn according to their interests, and the labs function as small maker spaces.”
“And what about the outcome?” It is a legitimate question. Parents considering an experiential-learning environment often worry that their children may later struggle to find their place in a society that is strongly driven by performance, efficiency, and conventional academic expectations.

Our guide didn’t really answer our question at first. But we got part of the final answer at the next school we visited: a military school for especially talented children.
The impressive part of this school was a science park, a playground with all kinds of technical equipment that offered great insights into science: forces, friction, energy and many other different scientific concepts. Children could turn wheels made from different materials, predicting the moment when the first wheel would stop turning. There were swings that demonstrated how energy is transferred, like a pendulum.
All very impressive. But no child to be seen anywhere.
And the playground, or science park, looked so untouched that we started wondering whether it was actually used?
When we asked, the guide said, “Oh yes, when the science teacher asks them to come to the park to play, they will come.” Well, military school? Have fun when I give you the command to be happy?
While in the tribal school everyone was playing with balls, jumping through the maths boxes and running on tracks, even together with Baluku, who joined them, we heard the military students only from a safe distance. A beautiful choir of children’s voices, no one off-key, in harmony and uniform.
And of course, the question that was asked: “And what about the outcome?” And here it became interesting. In regional and interstate school competitions, the students of the free, experiential-learning tribal school scored the highest. And the students from the military school, who had to do an entrance exam to get in, were way behind.
This was even acknowledged by the vice principal. And now, we were hooked. What are the factors that make students remain in an always-curious mode? And how could these modes of wanting to learn be retained over the years and far into adulthood?

Abhijit, a 2015 kanthari alumnus, demonstrates through his organisation, project-DEFY, a radically different approach to education, and to the very idea of what a school should be. As he puts it: “A school without teachers.”
Yet it is not a school in the conventional sense. There are no teachers, but also no students, classes, syllabus, or curriculum. There are no age groups, fees, or uniforms, and the programme does not focus on one particular community. Everyone is welcome.
The youngest learner so far has been 10 years old; the oldest, 74.
All arrive with an idea, or simply with curiosity. Instead of giving ready-made answers, facilitators ask questions that help learners think through how they can develop and realise their own ideas.

The ideas can be big or small. Some do not work out, while others grow into viable businesses. One learner transformed broken laptop screens into televisions. Others have published a poetry book or created furniture from waste materials.

The space where Abhijit met us was housed in an old Karnataka-style home. Its floors were finished in red oxide, and as was common in traditional households, there was a grinding stone set integrated in the floor for preparing masala. It was a space with a friendly and cozy atmosphere. And Abhijit, with his usual relaxed focus, was a joy to listen to. He raised the question that had followed us throughout the trip: “Why is alternative learning only for the rich and beautiful, rather than for anyone who wants to try?” His maker spaces, or “Nooks,” as he calls them are not intended to replace regular schools. Instead, they offer a parallel space for anyone who wants to learn, not primarily for career reasons, but out of genuine curiosity and intrinsic interest.

Abhijit recommended that we visit another school with a completely different method, tailored to a more homogeneous beneficiary group, an affluent middle-class community with parents who are generally open to alternative learning methods but equally interested in high-quality education.

“Sparkling Minds”, a school on the outskirts of Bangalore, follows the toughest curriculum, the IGCSE, but in such a way that every child benefits, whether fast or slow. The structure of learning is child centric, so that the child leads the learning process, not the teacher. Everything, even reading, is framed as a game. But these are games not designed to promote competition with others, but instead to compete with oneself.
Thus, everything becomes an experience: Reading a book is not simply consuming a story. It becomes a journey in which the reader starts by predicting the benefit of reading a book, simply by looking at the cover and thinking about or anticipating how this book could help oneself on a journey. While reading, the students are asked to analyse the characters, their emotions, their choices and decisions, and what the reader himself or herself would do in this or that situation.
Reading is now focused on conscious visualization, imagination and critical questioning.
Why would the author choose this ending? What if the book ended in a completely different way? How would I have written it?

Equally interesting is the school’s attempt to develop the children’s emotional vocabulary. “Everything we do is communication. And communication means mastering language.”, so the administrator of the school who was an excellent communicator herself.
It became clear, many of us have only a very limited vocabulary when it comes to describing our emotions. We are happy, angry or sad. But what kind of happiness?
Why are we happy? And is happy always equal to happy? Again, through games, children learn a huge variety of ways to describe their inner feelings. And thus, they begin to understand why they think what they think, why they feel what they feel and why they do what they do.

The curriculum they follow is structured into small, digestible bites, offered through experiments, experiences, group work, self-research, debates, and and and.
They have mixed-age classes. Children aged 6 to 9 learn together, then 10 to 12, then 13 to 15. Only the tenth graders are alone.

After tenth grade, they have a project year in which they need to work on one intense project of their choice, and then they finalize high school with 11th and 12th grade.
All graduates have the opportunity to choose the best universities in the country, and they could even go to top universities in the US or Europe.
Yet many feel that the regular learning system of universities will not offer what they need. And thus, several graduates decide not to go on to further studies, but rather to follow their own calling. Who knows, maybe coming to kanthari? 🙂

On one full day, we had a workshop with Equibeing about the idea of a School for Excellence: a school which is not aimed at blind people, but at empowering natural problem-solvers who happen to be blind.

Equibeing is in touch with the Royal Family of Mysuru, which have supported initiatives for blind people for more than 100 years. Paul and I had a workshop in May in which we explained our ideas for such a school. And the Maharani promised to be part of it.
Paul and I see this as a side project of kanthari and maybe as an experiential learning space for our participants.

On this particular day in Bangalore, Anantha Lakshmi, the founder, divided us into three different groups. One had the task of designing a school, again, not for blind people but for problem-solvers who happened to be blind.
Another group was working on methods to offer science and maths.
And another group had to figure out how we could change the perception of blind people from being objects of charity to being seen as problem-solvers for the world’s challenges.
For more than two hours, we were discussing and going deep into each topic.

It was followed by a ‘short’ round in which we would present our ideas. But the short round became another hot seat, in which the following questions were discussed:
Why maths?
Why science?
How do we challenge these kids physically?
How do we get the public involved?
What are our perceptions of blindness?

I asked the question: What is the main other sense that substitutes for the lack of the visual sense?
All immediately suggested: hearing. Is it really the audible sense?
And then something clicked, at least with Cedric: “When the power is gone and it becomes pitch dark, I use my hands to look for my mobile phone, for my keys, and for my way to navigate through my room. I try to feel or ‘see’ with my feet.”
That was an eye-opener for all of us.
Although I know that hands play a much more important role when it comes to substituting the visual sense, and that the ability to read with the two index fingers is in a way similar to the ability to see with the central part of your eyes, I had never quite understood it this clearly. And now I understand why Paul acts so funny when he walks around after the lights go off. I usually only realize that the power is off when he starts waving his arms around and carefully steps forward, searching with his feet for the path in front of him.

At the end of this workshop, everyone was lost in their own thoughts, and some were even rethinking their projects.
Cedric is planning to encourage his LGBTQ participants, who will learn cooking and baking, to offer cooking workshops for blind people. And Miraj, who for the longest time has been wondering how he could offer education to girls in Afghanistan, is now thinking: Why not empower blind girls? After all, they are not seen as “bridal material”. Why not give them the opportunity to enhance their learning first? They could become teachers and psychologists and, in doing so, perhaps even become door openers for others.

We are all back on our campus now, with a backpack full of experiences, and grateful that we bonded so well and were able to appreciate each learning together.

I especially admired Cedric and Leah, whose beneficiary groups are not children and whose projects are not mainly about learning. Yet both were so open, so ready to integrate all the learning into their thought processes, and so willing to question and improve their ideas, that it was a real joy to listen to them.

We started our journey with great curiosity, and we ended it full of ideas and overflowing with impressions. And one more thing: we were able to learn because we were ready to reflect, question, debate and relive whatever we had experienced.

Learn more about kanthari at: www.kanthari.org
And, SPREAD THE SPICE is coming up on 17th and 18th October 2026.

The post Blog – What if school were different? Lessons from the kanthari Exposure Trip first appeared on kanthari.

She had already spent the day standing in front of children, repeating instructions, marking books and raising her voice above the noise of a classroom. But at home in Kagadi, her working day was not over.

I remember our small table. Exercise books would be spread across it, children from the neighborhood sitting around her, waiting for another mathematics problem to be explained or another word to be corrected. And somewhere around that same table were her own six children. I was one of them.

My mother was a conventional teacher. She taught much the same way teachers around her had been trained to teach; stand in front, explain, write on the blackboard, let the children copy and prepare them for examinations. But after school she also coached children who lived nearby to earn some extra money.

Sometimes her salary was paid late. Even when it came, it was too small for everything waiting for it; Food did not wait. School fees did not wait. Six children certainly did not wait.

My father was largely absent from our everyday life. As a child, I did not understand why. I only understood what I could see: my mother carrying responsibilities that should have belonged to two people.

Kagadi, in Western Uganda, was the world I knew. On dry days, dust followed vehicles along the roads and settled on shoes and clothes. In many homes, the evening smell of cooking fires meant supper was being prepared. At school, there was the sound of children repeating answers together, wooden desks scraping against the floor and chalk moving across blackboards.

We were far from the Uganda I would later experience in Kampala. The western part of the country also lives close to another reality. Beyond Lake Albert lies the Democratic Republic of Congo, where conflict has displaced families for years. News of fighting across the region does not always feel like news from another world. In this part of Uganda, you grow up knowing that geography can decide many things about your life before you are old enough to understand them.

What if the place where you are born also decides the kind of education you get?

I simply knew that I did not want to become a teacher. Teaching looked exhausting. I had seen enough of it at home. And school itself was not doing much to convince me otherwise. I remember classrooms packed with learners. Sometimes there could be around ninety children sharing one room. We squeezed ourselves onto desks while the teacher stood at the front. The rhythm was familiar. The teacher spoke. We listened.

The teacher wrote. We copied.

Then came the examination. At times, education felt like a competition in remembering who had copied the teacher most accurately.

Results made the competition even more visible. The best performing learners could be celebrated publicly. Everyone knew who was first, second and third. The weakest performers could also be pointed out and more often beaten with a cane in front of their peers. Imagine being a child standing there while everyone knows you are among the last.

What does that teach you? Does it tell you to work harder?

Or does it slowly convince you that perhaps school was never meant for you?

For years, I looked at education mainly through the eyes of the learner.

Then life played a joke on me. I actually became a teacher.

The first time I stood in front of a class full of children; many things I had judged as a learner began looking different.

Ninety learners no longer looked like ninety children sitting at desks. They became ninety different minds. This observation was confirmed during my leadership training in kanthari, I realized that each one of these 90 students had even a different style of learning.

There are learners who learn best through hearing and repeating, some through seeing pictures and patterns, others through writing and reading and again others prefer learning through movement and enacting. And of course, many are learning with a mix of these methods.

Now, I start to question something about teaching. If I have explained something, but the learner has not understood it, have I really taught?

A sentence I once came across often attributed to Ignacio Estrada while reading began to make much more sense to me: “If I can’t learn the way you teach, then teach me the way I learn.” It sounded simple, but standing in front of a real classroom made it complicated.

How will teachers reach each learner? How can we influence learners when there are ninety of them? How do we reach the quiet child, the fast learner, the one who needs to see something, the one who needs to try it, and the one who needs to hear it explained differently?

Back then, I already began to understand education differently. Education is not what I have managed to teach. It is what the learner has actually managed to understand.

And that understanding became even more personal when I met Sarah. Sarah was sixteen, a Senior Five learner in a rural school where I was teaching. One day, I asked her a simple question: “When do you understand a lesson best?”

She became quiet for a moment before answering. “When the teacher explains slowly and gives examples, I understand… but not all the time.”

I kept thinking about those last four words. “Not all the time.”

Here was a learner sitting in school every day, attending lessons, copying notes, preparing for examinations and still sometimes leaving the classroom without understanding.

So, I started changing small things in my own lessons. Not buying expensive equipment.

Just changing what happened between the teacher and the learner. During one Economics lesson, instead of beginning with notes, I asked learners to imagine their mother had only 20,000 shillings at Kagadi market but needed food, soap and transport home and then decide in groups what she should buy first and what she should leave out.

At first there was silence. They were waiting for me to give the answer. I refused.

“Talk to each other.” Desks moved. Someone laughed. One learner disagreed with another. Another started explaining using an example I had not thought of myself. Soon the room became noisy not the noise of disorder but the noise of people thinking together.

Then hands started going up. Even some of the learners I hardly heard from were speaking.

At the end, one learner looked at me and asked: “Teacher Ian, will all the remaining lessons be like this?” That question followed me home. What exactly had happened?

I had not suddenly become a genius teacher. The learners had not suddenly become more intelligent. I had simply stopped treating them as containers to be filled. And that disturbed me. If one small change could make a learner who had been silent suddenly want to participate, how much potential were we losing in ordinary classrooms? I also began looking differently at teachers.

Today, when I think about that small table where my mother coached children after a full day of teaching, I see more than struggle. I see the beginning of my own story. She spent her life trying to create opportunities for children with whatever she had. I am trying to continue the same work. Only this time, I want to start with the Teacher.

One afternoon at a school where I teach in Kagadi District, I watched a teacher erase a learner’s low mark and replace it with a higher one. The learner had not understood more; only the number improved. The act was wrong, but it revealed a system in which hiding a learning gap can feel safer than admitting one the teacher lacks support to address.

Uganda’s Competency Based Curriculum expects learners to investigate, collaborate, solve problems and apply knowledge in real situations. Yet many rural teachers are expected to create these experiences under conditions that favour traditional chalk-and-talk teaching: overcrowded classrooms with limited preparation, scarce materials, weak connectivity, confusing assessment demands and little continuing professional support.

Before its rollout, only 35% of serving teachers were trained directly by the National Curriculum Development Centre; they were expected to orient the remaining 65% through a cascade model that often-lost depth. The 2025 Baseline Education Census reported a pupil teacher ratio of 48:1 in public primary schools, while some classrooms I have observed contain 60-90 learners. Only about 23% of surveyed primary schools had internet access (EPRC, 2024; UBOS & MoES, 2026; Uwezo Uganda, 2025).

In these conditions, group work can become noise, quiet learners can disappear and children with learning disabilities may be labelled slow or careless. Teachers may complete the syllabus and record marks without ensuring that every child has learned.

Government training, online courses and curriculum guidance are important responses, but many serving rural teachers still lack regular, nearby and subject specific support. They need opportunities to practice lessons, receive feedback, use available local resources, integrate technology, manage large classes and adapt teaching for different learning needs. Until this gap is closed, Uganda’s curriculum ambitions will continue to move faster than the rural classrooms expected to realize them.

An eleven-year-old child stands before a room of teachers and asks them to build a bridge from sticks, thread and paper. As they work, one teacher dominates, another stays silent and a group hesitates after its bridge collapses. The child asks, “How do you feel? Who was left out? What would have helped you learn?” For a moment, teachers experience the learner’s seat. This is where Rukuzi Learning Bridge begins.

Rukuzi means “to uplift.” Through a three-week practical programme, it supports rural and semi-rural teachers to create classrooms where learners question, investigate, participate and apply knowledge. Head teachers and principals join selected sessions to support classroom application. Teachers examine learning from both teacher and learner perspectives. They experience different learning methods, explore learning disabilities, age-appropriate sex education and learn to facilitate sensitive discussions safely.

They then discover how local objects, stories, community knowledge, printed materials and technology can support storytelling, inquiry, experiments, role play and group discussion.

Before the programme begins, each participant submits a topic they genuinely wish to understand. A colleague draws it from the Curiosity Box, investigates it and transforms it into a two-hour interactive workshop for the final week. The workshop brings together appropriate methods, available resources, inclusive participation and checks for understanding.

Rukuzi continues through peer support, classroom observation and resource sharing. The result is a teacher who feels supported, teaches with greater confidence and creates meaningful learning experiences even in large, under-resourced classrooms. Rukuzi uplifts the teacher so that the teacher can uplift generations of learners.

Learn more about kanthari at: www.kanthari.org
And, SPREAD THE SPICE is coming up on 17th and 18th October 2026.

The post Blog – The Classroom I Tried to Escape – Ian Brian Mugabi – Uganda first appeared on kanthari.

Twenty-six years ago, there was a similarly devastating flood nearby, which reached us one day ahead of the actual disaster. It was also in August, around this time of year, when the Chinese authorities “kindly” pointed out to us that our visas were no longer valid and that we had better get out of the country as quickly as possible to apply for new ones.
At the time, flights were limited, and since time was pressing, one really should not overstay in China without valid papers, we joined a Red Cross transport. We later learned that our Land Cruiser had been the last vehicle to make it safely through to the border in Zhangmu. Another vehicle that crossed the same bridge a few hours after us was swept into the abyss by the flood, together with the bridge, and was never seen again. We also learned later that our Red Cross driver was stranded in the border town for two weeks, until the bridge was repaired and he could return to Shigatse. The devastation in the valley was far greater than we could have imagined. In 1998, as today, there was no effective warning system or reliable information on the Chinese side.

While still in Tibet, we had no idea what awaited us across the river in Nepal. And after the Nepalese border officials had welcomed us with great friendliness, we stood there stunned in front of entire stretches of road that had been washed away, bridges swept off their foundations, and enormous landslides that had hurled entire buses down into a 100-meter-deep ravine.What haunts my sleep today are the crossings of those raging rivers deep below us: the two of us, backpacks on our backs, balancing on a dangerously bouncing wooden plank. And the sliding and scrambling down a mountain of mud that was still dripping into the abyss. This must be what it feels like for the people fleeing today, just a few days after the catastrophe.

And all these flashbacks bring the dreams back, too. The terrifying image of a wall of greenish-brown water rising behind the rocks, blocking out half the sky and forcing everything through the narrow valleys. A tsunami made of rocks, trees, mud and water. Everything in its path, the border stations, shops and Nepalese restaurants, the houses and huts of the workers, bridges, tourist buses and trucks, was simply swallowed up. And in the end, nothing remains but a landscape of utter devastation.
I used to have these wave dreams frequently during times of stress. At first, the waves were nothing but a threat. Later, they began to dissolve, like a cloud you were flying through. Eventually, the cloud disappeared altogether and vanished from my dreams.
Looking back, I had the feeling that the dreams stopped because, somehow, Paul and I had managed to get a grip on the possible catastrophes. And although we went through many challenges back then, I always had this underlying sense of security that, little by little, things would eventually turn out for the better. And, in the end, they did.
Back then, we were the ones affected. And in my dreams, too, I was standing in the path of the wave, or even walking towards it.
Today, in my dreams, I stand at the side, not too far away. And since I am sighted in my dreams, I can see the wall of water and hear the rumbling that is all too familiar to me from the rivers coming down from the Himalayas. I watch everything and feel helpless in the face of such force. This side-on perspective probably has something to do with our current situation in life. At kanthari, too, we stand at the side of our participants, listen to their stories and ask ourselves how on earth they are ever going to get out of the mess.

Let’s take a little step towards the east, not far from the disaster area. One of our participants comes from Arunachal Pradesh in northeastern India. His village lies very close to the border with Myanmar and a long way from Delhi.
“We are far out and forgotten,” he says with a slightly uneasy laugh, “The children have to spend hours getting to the nearest school. The roads are poor, often flooded or simply impassable. People are farmers or traders. And when they cannot make ends meet, young people sometimes join armed rebel groups.
But armed groups need income, too. If someone has a little success, brings in a good harvest or makes a profitable sale, they are quick to show up and demand their share. In parts of Arunachal Pradesh, particularly in the border areas with Myanmar, extortion is part of everyday life.”
We asked him about the quality of the schools. “They are generally poorly equipped. Teachers do not stay for long, and the children have little motivation to learn.” He wants to change this and help build a better future for his village. But where can he begin?

Another participant is worried about girls’ education in Afghanistan. Since 2021, girls have not been allowed to attend regular secondary school beyond the sixth grade. Women are also excluded from universities. Afghanistan therefore remains the only country in the world where girls and women are formally denied access to secondary and higher education. He has three daughters himself and is extremely worried about their future. He has hardly any good memories of his own childhood, and he sees little hope for his own children. When we ask him what profession he would like to train them for, he says: “What are you talking about professions for? Isn’t education itself already enough of a goal?” Well, somehow, he has a point. If we give girls no education at all, they remain stuck in their development. Especially in remote areas, they are cut off from the outside world. There is a saying in Afghanistan: ‘The happiest are those who have not yet been born; the second happiest are those who die young.’ Where, in such circumstances, can anyone find the motivation to bring about change?

Then there is a participant from Zimbabwe who has been divorced twice, or, more accurately, has survived two violent marriages. She has two children and is ostracised and ridiculed by her own community.
She is branded a “Returned Soldier,” a derogatory term used in Zimbabwe for divorced women. The label reflects the intense social pressure on women to remain married, whatever the circumstances. Rather than being recognised as a survivor and an independent woman, she is pressured to return to the marriage she escaped, even though her former husband has threatened her life.

And we have a peacebuilder from the Republic of Congo. Wait! There are two Congos! the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of the Congo, or, as he calls it, the NDRC, the “Non-Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
The DRC is the larger, better-known, or more notorious, of the two countries. We have already had two peacebuilders from the conflict-ridden region around South Kivu. Eric was kidnapped and tortured. He now lives in Sweden and continues to help from a distance. Elie is currently in neighboring Rwanda and cannot enter the DRC because of the Ebola outbreak.
The “other” Congo, the Republic of Congo, is a former French colony. As he puts it, the country remains heavily dependent on its former colonial power. Although the country is rich in oil and mineral resources, little of this wealth reaches the population. Large parts of the country remain difficult to access and have seen little development. Water is unsafe to drink, some schools have no roofs, and many people lack even basic healthcare. At the same time, dissent is swiftly suppressed. Protests are crushed, public gatherings are banned, and any sign of uprising is quickly silenced.

As we listen to these stories, we stand on the sidelines, horrified by the destruction and hopelessness, and painfully aware of our own helplessness. There is little we can do, except sit with them for a while and think alongside them. And yes, there are small glimmers of light: ideas that bring a little hope into all this bleakness. Small opportunities that, when recognized, can act like a starter motor. In a role-play suggested by Paul, a woman from Zimbabwe visits the participant in his region of Arunachal Pradesh. Her first question is: “Is there anything remarkable about your village?” He thinks for a long time. And eventually it occurs to him that the bamboo there might be the best in the country. And so he develops the idea of turning the villagers into bamboo experts. Bamboo can be used for construction, as food, to make dishes and furniture, and it can be processed into textiles. There are even bicycles made from bamboo.

The woman from Zimbabwe wants to transform the term “Returned Soldier” from an insult into a badge of honour. She even considers starting a rock band: The Returned Soldiers, a cool gang of divorced women who no longer must be ashamed of having survived a violent marriage.

On the contrary: they should be celebrated for being survivors. The Congolese participant wants to travel from village to village in a truck equipped with a mobile recording studio, encouraging people to talk about their situation. Their stories would then become song lyrics and eventually be carried out into the world through podcasts. Because while people are not allowed to express themselves politically through protests, poetry and art are encouraged. So: thinking through poetry.
His podcasts have now become “Poetcasts”, through which he wants to carry the voices of the Republic of Congo out into the world.

Only the Afghan participant is still staring into the distance, bewildered and lost in thought. The ideas of the others seem unable to reach him. What can he do? How can he rekindle the energy of the thinkers and doers, and of the many women and girls, in his country? Could digital learning programmes reach remote villages? Internet access, however, is far from universal. And when a device breaks down, there is often no one nearby who can repair it.

The situation is bleak. As with the devastation in Nepal, clearing the biggest obstacles will take time. Yet, he has already begun to work his way through the rubble, identifying one barrier after another. It is about developing new strategies for opening up breaches through which change can emerge. Some are already on their way. Others still have many obstacles to blast through.

Meanwhile, warnings continue along the Nepal-Tibet border. Following last Wednesday’s devastating flood, a lake formed behind a barrier of rubble, initially raising fears that another flood wave could occur. The water now appears to be draining away, at least partially, and the immediate danger of another breach has somewhat decreased. At the same time, another, larger reservoir of water is being monitored, so the danger has not yet completely passed.
Our thoughts are with all who are affected in Nepal and Tibet, and we certainly hope that the support they need will last…

Learn more about kanthari at: www.kanthari.org
An, SPREAD THE SPICE is coming up on 17th and 18th October 2026.

The post Blog – After the Flood – the Courage to Clear a Path first appeared on kanthari.

“For the last two weeks, I could not write my weekly reviews. For some reason, I was behind on my plan. Many unplanned fundraising activities cropped up, and I had to somehow fit them into an already packed plan. The fundraising experience needs a chapter of its own, that’s a story for another day.

For this review, I will not talk about the unsolved puzzles with Batch 12 or the dilemmas I still have to handle. Instead, I want to focus on Batch 11, the ones currently at the centre and who will be exiting by the end of this month.

Let me take you back a little.
Back then, as a participant at kanthari, during the curriculum workshop when our six-month model was being born, it was very interesting. But honestly, I had no idea how this was going to work. To me, it seemed like a movie script where I was yet to find the characters for the different scenes.
One of the gifts that a participant gets from kanthari is a backpack full of tools. So, they say.
Literally, one would think it is a collection of books with formulas, directions and manuals. In my case, I had nothing physical to show for it, except for, by now, short hair, but deep down, I was burning with knowledge.

I loved kanthari’s curriculum. How could I make Twajali’s 6-Course Menu like that, or even better?
I had no handouts to refer to, but I felt that the learning I had acquired there was more than I had ever acquired, even in previous universities. It was not in books. It was engraved in my heart and mind. I was a completely different person. That, I knew.

Batch 10 was a trial, a pilot of this new thing that was not only new to me but also to the team. Even with the challenges of being in a new centre, I could slowly see the difference in the trainees taking shape. It was a learning batch for all of us.
And now, when I look at Batch 11, I smile.
It is almost like they are the answer to the question of whether experiential learning really works. One of our hotel partners recently reached out to me and said:
“Of all the trainees you have given us, these were the best. What are you doing differently? They look confident, polished and like people who know what they want.”
There and then, I knew what had changed: The model.
What advantage do marginalized youth from the slums have?
This might sound like a sarcastic question, or perhaps that is how it sounded during the hot seat in my time as a participant. But later, I came to realise that there is actually strength in marginalization.

These young people are problem solvers by nature. Somehow, they learn to create solutions out of problems. They are resilient. They may not always know the right way, but they are not afraid to try and figure things out. That is why we incorporated resourceful problem-solving into our curriculum. And I have seen this strength come out now more than ever. This batch has been tasked with planning and executing our first big event at the new centre, our 4th Graduation Ceremony and the launch of Enaag Resort.
Sabriye once asked me, “Why not build the centre with the trainees?”
As much as I agreed with her, a conventional mind was still holding me back. I kept thinking that construction needed engineers and contractors, not hoteliers.
But I am beginning to understand something.
The engineers are needed for the technical work. The welders are needed for the welding. The electricians are needed for the electrical work. But the real building happens when, together as a team, we take responsibility and do what we can with our own hands. For instance, this week we needed to fix the solar powered lights around the resort area. The welders and technicians came and fixed the lights to the posts. Through the mentorship groups, the 14 lights were then distributed among the four groups. With their mentors, the groups were responsible for digging the holes and hoisting the lights.
And why not? It is not rocket science.
Today, the welder fixes it and we watch. Tomorrow, who knows? We might be doing our own welding. We might be fixing the solar lights. We might be figuring out why something is not working instead of simply waiting for someone else to come and fix it.
How cool can it be to have a chef who understands welding? Or a hotel manager who knows how to fix a solar light?

I am not saying we are training welders, electricians or technicians. But if a young person can learn to understand how things work, ask questions, try something new and solve a problem, then we have given them something much bigger than a technical skill.
We have given them resourcefulness. And as dusk came and the lights started lighting up one by one, all I could hear from the trainees was:
“Wow! Wow! This looks beautiful!” Many were taking photos and sharing them in the group with captions like:“Don’t ask where this is. This is our work.”
That made me happy.

Then I asked Jonnes: “How beautiful can it be that in five or six years, when you become the General Manager of this resort, because it will be managed by you guys, you will be telling your fellow staff, ‘You see these trees here? We planted them during our training. You see this light here? I hoisted it with my group members.’”
With a smile, still staring at the lights, he said: “And that dream is coming soon.”

How beautiful can training be? And as if this was not enough, on Sunday we had some engineers fixing the water tower. The welders and contractors could not lift the steel bars by themselves. Then the trainees, on their own, could not leave the site.
Though not as muscular as the contractors, both the young ladies and gentlemen helped raise the pillars.
No crane.
No machine.
Just one common goal:
Building together.

Construction continued for two more days during the week. After every lesson and during breaks, I could see them going to the site in turns, either to help or to ask questions.

Like watch dogs!
It is as if they are telling the people constructing:
“This is our project. I am vigilant. I must know what you are doing.”
And I think this is another part of the learning that we sometimes underestimate.
They are not just watching construction.
They are learning how things are put together.
They are learning how to ask questions.
They are learning how to work with technicians, engineers and contractors.
They are learning that they do not have to know everything before they can participate.
And perhaps one day, when something breaks in the hotel, the chef will not simply say, “That is not my job.”
Maybe she will pick up a tool and say, let me see what the problem is.”

Over the weekend, armed with rakes, wheelbarrows, machetes and every tool they could find, they all headed to the grounds to clear the cut grass, level the ground and remove stumps, making the place ready for the event.
When I look at their faces, they don’t look like young people who have been commanded to do manual work. They look like young people who are happy that they have been given a chance to show what they can do.
Young people who are happy to be part of a bigger dream.
Young people who are learning by doing.
Perhaps the best lessons happen beyond the classroom.

In two weeks, on 28th August, the big day will come.

The event will host about 300 guests. For one night, our accommodation tents will become home to 30 guests.
And honestly, I have no doubt about these trainees.
They are taking control, from planning to execution.
They are planning the event. They are preparing the grounds. They are working with the technicians. They are putting up lights. They are helping with construction. They are figuring things out. They are taking ownership. And I can sit down and relax because they have proven that they love what they do.

And I am convinced this is a better examination than sitting for three hours, filling in an answer sheet.
Because here, the question is not: “What do you know?”
The question is: “What can you do with what you know?”
And perhaps even more importantly: when you don’t know………you learn.”

More information about Mary’s work can be read on www.twajali.org

More details about the kanthari course can be found on www.kanthari.org/admissions

The post Blog – What if training moves beyond the classroom? – Mary Mutua – Kenya first appeared on kanthari.

As I am writing this, we are sitting in an airplane somewhere between Jaipur and Chennai, eager to get home and get started with Act 2. We are flying through a monsoon-active corridor, and the airplane is shaking as if it were riding a bumpy road… The short time-out was good for both of us.

Stepping away from campus life from time to time helps us recharge and stay energized. The conference we attended was organized by Ravi Santlani, the founder of ScooNews, whose genuine passion for inclusive learning for all was evident in every detail!
The event showcased educational enterprises, publishing houses, and creators of hands-on learning tools. It made me realize just how vast the education industry has become.

paul and I were invited as speakers, along with about 30 other changemakers, all working in the field of inclusive education. I was impressed by the genuine interest of the visitors, principals and headteachers. Many of them run private schools or colleges and were eager to open their schools to people with disabilities. Many did not see this simply as a service, but as an opportunity for both students with and without disabilities. Despite the enthusiasm of parents, teachers, and current and former students who had experienced inclusive education, I made some observations.
Every time a person with a disability spoke, it felt as if they had an urge to tell everyone how much they had achieved in life. They were all toppers in school, had passed their examinations with flying colors, met celebrities or even the prime minister, and/or received multiple awards.

Of course, it was refreshing, for a change, to meet people who didn’t focus on how much they had suffered because of being blind or physically disabled, but instead on what they wanted to achieve. But it also made me sad to hear that they all seemed to feel this pressing need to tell the world how “normal” they are.
One bright blind boy, 15 years old, spoke. He had a wonderful, mischievous character, and he spoke well about his dream. He wanted to become an IAS officer and make a difference in his community. I just hope it was his dream, and not a dream that was whispered in his ears by his parents.
He spoke about attending a school for the blind before experiencing an inclusive setting. In the school for the blind, he scored between 70 and 80 percent, which, he said quite clearly, was enough. But his parents told him that he should not compete with those other blind kids; he should compete with sighted students. The audience cheered.

But did they hear what the boy had said? The parents had apparently decided that “those other blind kids” were beneath their son intellectually. They were a ‘lower class’. And the audience cheered?
He attended a regular school for only a year or two before his parents withdrew him and encouraged him to pursue online learning instead, a format he apparently enjoys.
His mother sat in the front row, filming everything. She was clearly proud, like many of the mothers and fathers in the audience. Still, I found the relationships between the parents and their children a bit claustrophobic: some parents seemed to derive a great deal of meaning from their role as caregivers. And this brings me back to George and his project.

George wanted to empower the parents of children with disabilities by training them to become better caregivers. But I asked him whether he also trains the parents to give their children a little freedom or space. Parents and their disabled children, this was more than obvious at the conference, often seem to have a very strong interdependence. Therefore, I suggested to George that he additionally think about a one-day-a-week “Swap the Parents” programme.

The idea is simple: parents swap their disabled children for one full day. They spend this time with another family and learn from a different disabled child, while their own child experiences life with another parent.

The idea is not to treat children like parcels being exchanged, of course. It is about breaking the bubble of dependency and giving both parents and children a little breathing space. It can also give the child the feeling that the world is bigger than their own family, and that other families may have different expectations, different ways of handling challenges, different strengths and solutions.
George was excited and started talking to his beneficiaries about it almost immediately.
They tried it out last weekend, and the results were quite promising.
I would have loved to talk about George’s experiences and this new approach with the parents of children with disabilities at the conference.
However, due to the full schedule, there was not sufficient time to go in depth.
Maybe this could be an opportunity for future conferences, having less speakers and more time for personal interaction and exchange.

Real inclusion isn’t about applause or awards; it’s about everyday courage to loosen dependency, give children (disabled or not) some space, and create real freedom for children and parents alike.

It was great to attend the conference; there is always a lot to learn, and it provided plenty of food for thought. We are looking forward to being back on campus to get started on a fruitful Act 2!

More information about George’s organisation Foundation for Tomorrow (F4T) www.foundationfortomorrow.co.ke

The post Blog – From Applause to Freedom: George’s ‘Swap the Parents’ approach for Real Inclusion first appeared on kanthari.

The word politics comes from the ancient Greek word polis, meaning “city” or “community.” Originally, politics simply referred to the affairs of the people living together in a community. Today, however, the word is often understood much more narrowly. When someone says a person is political, many immediately assume they are active in a political party. But being political is much broader than that. It simply means engaging in matters of public interest.

Since 2025, we have shaped our fictional country (which is part of the kanthari experiential learning) in such a way that participants have no choice but to engage with issues that concern everyone.
One third serves in the government, representing different ministries and making decisions. Another third sits on the Control Committee, keeping a close eye on the government’s actions and making sure money is spent fairly and transparently. The remaining third forms the opposition. Their role is to question decisions critically, challenge policies, and, when necessary, protest during debates, and sometimes even during coffee breaks.
Whenever I hear participants wanting to “chicken out” of political debates, I ask myself: Is that possible?
Can someone be a changemaker, advocate for the rights of marginalized people, and still claim not to be political? Isn’t almost everything changemakers do a matter of public interest? Why then choose the easy way out by saying, “I’m not political”? In our simulated country, freedom of speech exists, and a culture of open debate is there.

And then there comes the “but.”
“But in our country…” Yes. Most of our participants are right.
What can be done in our simulated country, with the worst possible consequence being that you might end up in the newspaper, can have far more serious consequences in many of their home countries. I grew up believing, almost taking it for granted, that the world would gradually become more progressive, more equal, fairer, and more just.
Today, the reality differs quite a bit.

Rights that were fought for and won during the 1970s and 1980s in many countries are slowly evaporating. They are melting away before our eyes. What often remains is an indistinguishable mush of accepted opinions that nobody is supposed to question. And whoever does question them is quickly labelled as ‘anti’, ‘anti-this’, ‘anti-that’ rather than being listened to.

I grew up in a time when joining demonstrations was considered almost a civic duty.
The first protest I attended was about women’s rights. I must have been around ten years old. Two feminist university students took my brother and me along. It was quite a sight: people singing, shouting, occupying streets, demanding an end to violence against women.

Then there were the protests in the Hofgarten, the public park behind our university. I think I was about eleven when Heinrich Böll spoke there and encouraged people to link arms and form human chains. Later came the peace demonstrations. One of the biggest was a star march in Bonn. At that time, I was attending boarding school in Marburg. Three friends and I asked our teachers whether we could participate. They happily agreed and even gave us money for the bus tickets. When other students complained that they also wanted a day off, our teachers answered very clearly:
“They don’t have a day off. They have a day of public protest.”

During my university years, I helped organize several demonstrations. One attracted more than 5,000 participants. Another focused on the sensitive issue of the Kurdish people’s struggle for freedom. That protest later became an example of successful cooperation between protesters and the police. Despite the emotionally charged topic, the entire event remained peaceful and was managed with mutual respect by everyone involved.

During our first years in Lhasa, the national government was constantly suspicious of us, seeming to believe we were somehow involved in anti-national activities. Our reply was always the same: “We are not involved in local politics. We are blind politically.” Eventually, they understood what we meant, though to make sure, they kept a close eye on us.

Everything that influences our lives, from being blind to caring about environmental protection, education, peace, or human rights, is political. Nowadays, wherever we go, these topics have become increasingly sensitive.
Why am I writing about this? Because India was boiling. Many young people, especially Generation Z, simply had enough. Enough of being pushed through an education system that measures degrees rather than talents. Enough of collecting certificates only to discover there are no jobs. Enough of being looked down upon. Enough of unfair treatment. Enough of examination papers being leaked before the exams even begin.
So here is my question: Can we actually afford not to be political? All of these are matters of public interest. And we cannot afford not to care.

Yes, there are limits to what can be said in public. Speaking out can cost organizations their licenses. It can cost individuals their freedom. In some countries, it can even cost lives. These realities cannot be ignored.

Some of our participants can practice taking a political stand here. But will they be able to do so once they return home? And if they can, how will they balance speaking up and remaining safe?

Well, let me end with one final word about our fictional country.
When we first created it in 2009, it often felt like a nightmare to live and work there.
Today, without changing very much, I sometimes have the feeling that the real world has overtaken us.
And suddenly our fictitious country appears more liberal than many countries I know, including my own.

Read more blog posts here
Learn more about kanthari TALKS on https://kantharitalks.org/

The post Blog – Can we afford not to be political? first appeared on kanthari.

I know fewer things for sure than when I arrived. But that is progress as it comes in mysterious forms. The biggest learning for me, the change in the unit through which I observe the world.

One of the recurring themes throughout the year was that outcomes often emerge without intention. Nobody set out to create inequality during simulations, yet inequality emerged across carefully chosen global changemakers. Nobody deliberately excludes people from systems, yet systems quietly privilege some while constraining others. I have become less interested in asking who is responsible and more interested in asking what conditions made a particular outcome predictable.

The same applies to social change, I believe. I arrived believing that changing reality meant designing better interventions. Increasingly, I think the harder task is understanding the reality that already exists. Most failed interventions are not failures of execution; they are failures of perception, perhaps. We solve the reality we imagine instead of the one people actually live.

Perhaps this is why we at kanthari spend so much time unsettling assumptions. Every meaningful conversation this year seemed to begin by removing certainty rather than adding knowledge. That process is uncomfortable because it forces us to admit that many of our strongest convictions are inherited rather than examined.

I suspect this has been my greatest learning.
Not fundraising. Not on how to take engaging sessions.
Simply learning to delay conclusions. To observe a little longer.
To ask one more question before proposing an answer.

It turns out that changing the way we see reality may be the first act of changing reality itself. I have to sit down over the weekend to recollect what else I have learnt last year, and that would be a wonderful exercise in itself.

Read more blog posts here
Learn more about kanthari TALKS on https://kantharitalks.org/

The post Blog – A year of Unlearning first appeared on kanthari.

In fact, we began with something that every very young child does effortlessly: the ability to transform concepts, seamlessly switching back and forth between reality and fantasy. Once a toddler learns the word cup, it immediately recognizes cups everywhere, regardless of their colour, shape, size, or material. But when the child becomes bored or simply playful, the cup suddenly turns into a hut, a boat, or a racing car. At the same time, a closed hand, a curled-up leaf, or even the shell of a nut might also become “a cup.”

Every year we use this exercise with our adult participants, and every year it is astonishing to witness how firmly each of us has become attached to a single concept: a cup is an object used for drinking liquids. Then we want to apply the same concept to the project ideas of our participants.
In quite a few cases they react with: “Oh no… why do you do this to us?”

Because freeing ourselves from rigid concepts means becoming capable of questioning the status quo. And that is exactly the job of a changemaker. To do this, we must learn to unlearn. We need to question many of the concepts we have absorbed throughout our lives, from our parents, teachers, schools, churches, religious leaders, and the societies we grew up in.

Questioning does not mean distancing ourselves from everything we know. It does not mean that change is automatically better. Nor does it mean looking at existing ideas with negativity. Questioning simply means remaining open to rethink, to explore, and, if necessary, to transform a concept. But this ability requires practice.

Natural questioners are children before they enter school. Yet once they become part of formal education, many gradually lose that wonderful ability to turn a cup into a boat.

During Act 1, we try to bring our participants back to that stage of curiosity. And there is hardly a better classroom than our lake. Working in groups of five or six, participants gather around a boat and fill it with invasive floating water plants and some discarded plastic bottles. While their hands are busy and their minds are gently distracted, seemingly impossible questions suddenly become playful exercises. Questions that remained unanswered in the classroom suddenly find surprisingly thoughtful responses in the cool breeze, under refreshing rain, or while watching a pink-and-turquoise sunset over the lake.
Among the questions they explored were:
• What is great about being a street child?
• What did waste teach you when you were a rag picker?
• How can silence be transformed into freedom?
After so many questions floating around, one final question remained:
When do we need to transform a concept?
The answers became obvious.
We need to transform concepts:
• when conventional solutions no longer solve old problems;
• when the parameters have changed and entirely new challenges emerge;
• when our ventures must evolve in order to survive;
• and when we want to remain flexible, dynamic, and capable of
discovering new possibilities.

Sometimes I cannot help thinking that these exercises should also be done with those
who hold the power to make decisions, CEOs, judges, politicians, and policymakers.
Let’s put them all around a boat in a lake, with a task to clean it together.

I have a strong feeling that many of today’s complex problems would suddenly receive much more thoughtful, creative, and valuable answers.

Read more blog posts here
Learn more about kanthari TALKS on https://kantharitalks.org/

The post Blog – How We Learned to Unlearn first appeared on kanthari.